When I finished up grad school, the economic problems were in full swing, and it took me quite a while to find a job.

At the time, I was interested in an interactive agency in Manhattan called G2 Interactive. I wrote back and forth with them for months about a potential position as a Junior Web Designer. Then, four months into my job search, they offered me the opportunity to work in their PA office… and I jumped at the chance!

No, it wasn’t quite New York City, but it was a job…

Last year in the middle of March, I left the beautiful city of Atlanta to move up to the town of Hatboro, Pennsylvania… a tiny little crumb of a city who’s claim to fame (I’ve been told) is its wind.

Having braved only the tail end of last year’s winter, I am experiencing what a Northern Winter actually means for the first time this year… The last round of snow added another 15 inches to a base of at least 10. (See below.)

So why are there TWO rednecks in Hatboro (as implied by the title)…

Well, my sister ran into the same luck as I did when she began her job search, shortly after getting her Masters in Marketing…

I suggested that she look for an internship somewhere… in order to gain some experience… To which she responded “Well, How about an internship at G2 with you!”

For people who didn’t witness the two of us growing up, this would sound sweet, but to those who know us, they feared for our safety… and hair… a lot of hair pulling goes on between the Jung girls….

Kidding, sort of.

To make a long story short, she got the job and moved up here on December 2nd.

Two days later I put in my notice at G2 because I happened to get two job offers from companies in Princeton, NJ!!! And Princeton is lightyears cooler than Hatboro so I really didn’t have a choice in the matter! I wound up choosing the offer from a software interface company that creates web components, where I was very pleasantly surprised on my first day to find out that they are in the process of rebranding their ENTIRE company… and that I would be in charge of the website and product branding! I’ve always wanted to take a monster of a project… and this opportunity is giving me everything I could ever ask for in that respect!

And now I’m going to steer myself back towards my original topic…

With Carrie being up here in Hatboro now, I’ve been trying to give her little projects to keep her busy.

(I don’t have cable right now because I was sinfully underpaid for the last nine months…) So I gave her my stack of Botany fabric and my mom’s old sewing machine… and after a day and a night she made this little messenger bag! (See below.)

Kudos to Carrie!

That next weekend, we experienced our first big snow storm. It was a big day for us and rather than bundling up and staying indoors, we decided to go galavanting about outside… taking photos… because that’s what rednecks like to do in the snow!

Buying fabric always makes for a great time… until that day when the avid fabric enthusiast is forced to come to grips with the fact that her fun little weekend pastime is starting to put a dent into her wallet…

The problem here pretty much boils down to two issues: (1) Quilts that use an eclectic variety of beautifully colored fabrics are awesome… and (2) eclectic varieties of beautifully colored fabrics can get to be VERY expensive.

Thankfully though, necessity has proven, yet again, to breed innovation… because some wonderfully ingenious person came up with the idea of pre-cut kits!

Even though I have always liked each of our fabrics individually, I have to say… that when I saw them come together for the first time, as a group… and interact with one another… something magical happened!

HANCOCK’S OF PADUCAH® must have felt the same way, because they decided to make a kit out of our Garden Variety Quilt Pattern…

Their Quilt Kit will give you everything that you need to make this particular quilt… PLUS, you get to use each of the 40 fabrics without breaking the bank!

My mom designed our Garden Variety Quilt for Fall Market to showcase all 40 fabrics in Botany… we felt that this particular design really allowed the colors to mingle and play off one another… And after looking at the finished product… I really feel that this quilt embodies the essence of spring and nature… the explosion of colors coupled with the organic subject matter just about requires that this quilt be used when picnicing!

And finally… I’m in the mood for a tangent.

Everyone who’s ever visited to Paducah, Kentucky for the Annual Quilt Show, has also been to Hancock’s of Paducah! The two go hand in hand.

My mom (Jessi), and her three best friends have made this trec for several years now and have made Hancock’s their very first stop each time… almost as if the big quilt show, was nothing more than an afterthought!

I’ve listened to their colorful descriptions each year and they don’t seem to go there merely because its a fantastic store… They go there for the “Hancock’s Experience”… And it’s these stories that made me especially excited when I heard that Hancock’s wanted to make a kit out of one of our patterns!

Quilters (armed with little shopping carts) plant themselves between rows of tables piled high with the latest fabrics, (all different measurements). Each person peruses the piles, pulling out favorites… unfolding… refolding… for hours at a time. And after spending these huge chunks of time together… everyone with the same goal in mind… it’s only natural that the women begin to feel as though they’ve formed a camaraderie with one another… one person will yell across the tables for everyone to be on the lookout for a particular fabric… which will often make for yardages being thrown through the air towards some excited recipients…

Apparently, the quilters get so engrossed in their searches… that at closing time each night, an employee will have to announce over the intercom that the store will close in 10 minutes… AND rather than packing up… the women crack up and continue sifting through the mountains of fabric. Definitely a good time!

Carrie is my younger sister by two years, so we were all a little surprised when she was the first one to get engaged…

Those who knew her well, back in her high school years of dating, refer to that time period as her “dumpster diving phase”. She dated a few guys here and there, but each relationship ended quickly and tragically for Little Carrie…

Then in the summer following graduation, she began working at Brusters, an icecream shop in our home town of Spartanburg, SC. She became fast friends with her manager, Inbal, and started hanging out with her on the weekends…

It was on one of these weekend outings that she met Inbal’s boyfriend, Andrew… AND it just so happened… that on this SAME weekend outing, Andrew decided to bring his brother, Jon, along.

Jon fell madly in love with Carrie… Carrie fell madly in love with Jon, and the rest is history.

This wonderful happy ending was made even happier by the fact that while I was living in Atlanta, my boyfriend, Beau decided to move in with Jon. The two of them later moved into my same apartment complex, and the three of us, along with their third roommate, Kevin, became the best of friends!

So, I suppose it works out well for everyone… Carrie’s getting married… Jon was in my “Atlanta gang” so I approve of the decision… my friend, Megan, took these awesome engagement photos (see below)… Beau and I both get to be in the wedding… my bride’s maid dress is ADORABLE…

AND… I was put in charge of the wedding invitations! (…or I might have demanded to be in charge of them, but that’s neither here nor there.) We’ve just finished producing her set of Save the Dates and those will be going out tomorrow. (See above.)

And those are just a small taste of the interactive experience that is to come with the invitation itself!

Carrie’s wedding is in June and she decided to go with a very natural, garden inspired wedding… I used this organic inspiration as my jumping off point for the design… My first attempt with these produced a wild and crazy mass of plantlife that wound its way across the four page, accordion-fold invitation… But there was something about the illustration’s lack of structure that didn’t sit well with me. So I began again, and even though I kept the same flowers and vines, I let the structure of the vines take on the shape of an intricate wrought iron gate. Which produced this very structured, garden-themed drawing that we all LOVE!

Carrie’s starting to love them a little less, because she’s in charge printing, cutting, stickermaking, gluing, and round-corner punching each piece of her wedding invitation suite.

Writing these patterns has become a very tag-team effort between me and my mom. We design them together. Then she takes the designs and figures out how to bring them to life. She writes up all of the instructions and then emails those, along with some rough sketches, to me. I take these and design the cover art and illustrations. Being a non-quilter… I feel as though I can objectively rate the ease of the instructions… and then add in a little here and there. Additionally, I’ve spent A LOT of time coming up with (what I consider to be) the perfect illustrations for each step… Because I know how annoying it is to have directions that were written for people with a very high skill level. (I think that if cookbooks would take a similar approach, I might try cooking once in a while…) After the instructions are written up, my mom then tests the patterns for the second time… just to make sure that we have all of our bases covered.

We realize though, that even the most thorough instructions may occasionally sound vague to someone who is new to quilting. So we welcome any comments or questions that you all might come across! Feel free to either post your question here on our blog, or you can email us at LandJ@LaurenAndJessiJung.com and we’ll make sure to get back with you right away… as well as update our patterns with any necessary content! Happy quilting!

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Lauren Jung

I'm the designer in the group... And I write about half of the blog posts here. I'm also co-founder of a startup called Shelf (launching soon).

Carrie Jung

Carrie heads up our PR department. She's also one of the main contributors to a book that we're publishing. And she takes care of LOTS of other stuff, because she's awesome! And we all think she should quit her day job to pursue the wonderful world of pattern making. (Kidding Carrie, chill.)